Tories Target Trade Union Political Funds

The Centre for Policy Studies was founded in 1974 by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph. Since then it has become an ideas factory for neo-liberal policy formation and trades in the rhetoric of free markets, deregulation, slashing red tape, competitiveness, flexibility ... all those New Right buzzwords we've come to learn and loathe over the last 30 years. Strange how no one talks about trickle down any more.

Their latest pamphlet on political funding, Labour and the Trade Unions: An Analysis of a Symbiotic Relationship is straight out of the CPS mould. The first point of its summary reads

The Labour Government has, since 1997, made much of its "business friendly" credentials. However, study of its employment legislation and its relaxation of Trade Union regulation shows that, in reality, employers have been faced with significant extra burdens and that the rights enjoyed by Trade Unions have been greatly strengthened.

You might be tempted to ask "what planet are they on?" Even the dogs in the street know New Labour is the most right-wing anti-working class Labour government in British history. Only people with a visceral hatred for the labour movement, combined with a relationship to the class struggle mediated by The Telegraph and working lunches with corporate "risk-takers" could believe otherwise. The credited authors of this piece are Alan Duncan, Tory shadow for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and Jonathan Djongoly, his deputy. But all of us who care about the labour movement would do well to pay attention to their recommendations. If the Tories get back in after the next election (did they ever leave?), these suggestions could well form the basis of their political funding/anti-trades union legislation.

It is worth quoting Duncan and Djongoly's most important recommendations at length. These belong to a set of positions specifically addressing union political funds and political donations:

* Unions' members should vote annually on maintaining a political fund.
* A Union's members should be required to vote on the level of the political levy annually.
* The political fund opt-out right should be clearly stated on Trade Union membership application forms or a specific opt-in introduced.
* The opt-out right should be offered annually to each union member.
* Union members who do wish to contribute to the political fund should be able to decide either directly as individuals or collectively via a members' vote to which party/parties/causes their funds should be put.
* The accounting reporting requirements of Unions should be reviewed - particularly with a view towards improving transparency.

All this, the authors claim, means unions would be "subject to similar levels of transparency and democracy as apply to companies and individuals". Physicians, heal thyselves! Anyone remember the £550,000 allegedly given to the Tories on the quiet by Wafic Said, the billionaire intermediary who greased the wheels of the infamous British Aerospace fighter deal with the Saudi despots? Yes, everything was so very above board then.

Let there be no doubt about this. There is nothing wrong with demanding financial transparency in labour movement organisations. Trade union members have every right to know where our money is going, be it to the political party that time and again kicks our class in the teeth, or into cushions padding the comfy chairs of many a general secretary. Neither is there anything wrong with democratising political funds. But these Tory proposals have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with reinforcing the power of capital over labour. If implemented, there are likely to be two sets of consequences:

1) Trade union funding to Labour will be severely curtailed. According to Electoral Commission figures cited in the document, £55.5 million flowed from the unions into the party's coffers in the 2001-2006 period, 65.1% of all monies received. The Tories assume if their proposals become law, the majority will either opt out of paying a political levy and/or some unions could drop their affiliation. Either way, less trade union money will be heading in Labour's direction and make it more dependent on business backers than ever before. This gives the Tories more of an advantage when it comes to campaigning - their organic links to British capital ensures their ability to massively outspend Labour. Given the character of the Labour party at present, some might justifiably say "so what?" It isn't as if New Labour hasn't spent the last 11 years grovelling before business interests. But the danger this could pose to Labour party funding will also apply to any future new workers' party with trade union backing. Effectively, it seeks to lock working class people out of political participation.

2) The proposed measures on annual political levy level votes, maintenance of the fund, destination of the levies, and the annual opt-out reminder comes on top of the continued becalming affects of existing anti-trade union legislation. As bureaucracies have mushroomed to ensure compliance with a superabundance of Byzantine regulations and technicalities, resources will have to be found to run permanent departments attending to the Tories' rules. More bureaucracy = more conservatising pressures on the trade unions and less money for front line activities.

What can be done? A strategy solely concerned with keeping the Tories out is a non-starter. At the moment, choosing between Labour and Conservative governments is the difference between neo-liberalism with a smile and a smirk, and a neo-liberalism openly contemptuous of working class people. Labour's opposition to meddling with the union link will last as long as it takes to sort out party funding from the public purse. They too seek to exclude ordinary people from mainstream politics. "Nationalising" parties make them less amenable to the pressures of membership, of the activists who theoretically act as a bridge between the general public and the full time apparatus and leadership of a party. The Tory proposals amount to the same thing: "privatising" parties by making them more dependent on the grace of wealthy individuals and business entities will do the job just as well.

The best way, the only real way we can head off attacks of this character is for the left to seriously agitate for and win over as many trade unionists as possible to a programme of democratising our movement . This goes hand in hand with making it more relevant, meaningful, and responsive to the needs of our class. We have to wield the weapon of democracy, otherwise our enemies will use its name against us.